Stunner at the Runway

What a game. Some quick postgame notes.

Edsall showed some guts with the 4th-and-1 call. He said he called time out, asked the defense if they thought they could stop Pitt, "and before they could answer I said, aw, we're going for it." Edsall said he had faith in Jordan Todman and his offensive line, and wanted to control his own destiny. Deep in their own territory with 2:33 left, Pitt would have had a great chance to move into field goal territory.

"I don't think I could have lived with myself if we punted the ball," Edsall said. "Some people might say it takes a lot cajones to make that call...but these kids give it everything they got. I think I would have been doing a disservice to the offensive football team if I took them off the field at that point."

Edsall said he saw the look, and could feel the flow of the game. "It didn't feel like that much of a risk," Edsall said.

Edsall pointed to Jerome Junior making a huge block on the fumbled kickoff that set up the decisive TD pass from Frazer to Isiah Moore. Junior blocked a Pitt player away from the ball, preventing that player from making a play on the loose ball and allowing Robbie Frey to get to it.

Frazer just had the wind knocked out of him, and was, obviously, fine. "Zach's a competitor," Edsall said. "You've got to give the guy a lot of credit. A lot of credit. What he's been through, it says a lot about him as a person. ... That throw for the TD (to Isiah Moore) that was a rifle."

Firstly, HCRE made every right call, he pitched a perfect game last night, hats off to the guy. He's been getting crap all year, and every single decision he made last night was correct and worked out. Going for it on 4th down in the 1st quarter, not going for 2 after the Williams TD return, going for it again on his own 19. Good for him.

Second comment, I know that place wasn't sold out, but I thought the crowd was pretty solid, made some noise, got things going.

On to the questions, first, isn't a fair catch signal now reviewable based on the Larry Taylor fiasco from a few years ago? I thought because of that play, they allowed officials to look at a fair catch signal to avoid that kind of confusion.

Second question, Baldwin's TD? The replay they showed on the big screen didn't look like he got a foot down, but how about the TV replay? Did they make the right call reversing that one?

I have a few added tidbits from last night that I was going to put on the blog, but decided to hold off because it was so late.

Not long after the fair catch call, a Big East official came over in the press box and told us the officials had it right. Williams, as the deep guy, waving his arms the way he did (the 'get away' wave, like an umpire calling a runner safe in baseball) is, in essence, the same as a fair catch. Once he signals like that, the ball is dead once he touches it. He can't advance it, which is why the flag came for delay of game.

I was unaware that was the rule, but, so be it.

Baldwin's TD looked shaky to me, even after the replay. His foot was down, but I wasn't sure he had established possession as it dragged across the end line. I didn't think it was enough to overturn. But, the ESPN crew who had a much better look at all the replays than me staring straight up at the TV screen in the press box, was convinced it was a TD.